improvement(search): name Slack authors, read only when needed, and list by date without a bound

[waleedlatif1]

Summary

• Slack authors: conversations.replies identifies authors only by user ID, so reads labeled every message "Slack member" and the Assistant spent extra reads working out who said what. Reads now name authors from an embedded profile, else users.info (Tier 4, users:read), at most 10 lookups per read and in parallel with the permalink call. A failed lookup keeps the generic label instead of failing the read; aborts still propagate. Bot messages use their documented username
• Search context: RTS context_messages carry their own author_name/user_id; results with surrounding messages now label each line with its author. No extra requests: search still never waits on directory lookups. A lone match is unchanged
• Reads only when needed: guidance and the tool result message said to read every returned document, although live results already carry each match's text. They now say to read when the text is cut off or more of the document or thread is needed
• Date listing without a bound: sortBy newest/oldest with no terms and no dates was rejected, costing a model round trip before it retried with endDate = now. The server now adds that bound itself, the same default Slack's conversations.history/conversations.replies apply to an omitted latest. The request is then identical to the one the model sends on retry and is checked like any other bound. Requests with terms or dates are untouched; relevance-sorted empty requests are still rejected
• Regenerated the Assistant tool catalog; companion worker PR syncs its contract copy and must merge after this one

Type of Change

• Improvement

Testing

Live search, contract, MCP and mothership suites pass (5,307 tests); new tests fail on the old code. Lint, 49 audits, block registry, docs manifest and type-check clean

Checklist

• Code follows project style guidelines
• Self-reviewed my changes
• Tests added/updated and passing
• No new warnings introduced
• I confirm that I have read and agree to the terms outlined in the Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

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1 Skipped Deployment

Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated
docs	Skipped		Sep 25, 2026 2:30am UTC

[cubic-dev-ai]

All reported issues were addressed across 13 files

<sub>Reply with feedback, questions, or to request a fix.

Fix all with cubic | Re-trigger cubic</sub>

[greptile-apps]

Confidence Score: 5/5

[Medium risk] Search API now allows listing by date without search terms.

The PR appears safe to merge based on the changes reviewed.

Summary

This PR names Slack authors in reads and contextual search results, makes document reads conditional on needing more context, and permits date-sorted live listings without explicit terms or dates.

• The changes since the previous review fix the match-author fallback and clarify the read guidance.
• Both previous findings are resolved; no new actionable issue was identified.

_{Reviews (2) · Last reviewed commit: "fix(search): accept date listings on the..."}

[waleedlatif1]

@greptile

[waleedlatif1]

@cubic-dev-ai review this PR

[cubic-dev-ai]

@cubic-dev-ai review this PR

@waleedlatif1 I have started the AI code review. It will take a few minutes to complete.

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 15 files

Confidence score: 5/5

• Automated review surfaced no issues in the provided summaries.
• No files require special attention.

_{Re-trigger cubic}